this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
279 points (96.7% liked)

Not The Onion

15918 readers
1518 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A comment by White House science adviser Michael Kratsios has gone viral after a speech in which he claimed U.S. technology can “manipulate time and space,” prompting online speculation.

Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, made the remark during a policy address at the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin, Texas on April 14.

“Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity,” Kratsios said during prepared remarks published on the official White House website.

While the statement was likely intended as aspirational language about technological progress, it has since circulated widely online, with some interpreting the comment literally.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Lighttrails@sh.itjust.works 217 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 29 points 3 days ago

Perfect. No notes.

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 147 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Well they're right: it really feels like 1934 Germany right now.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 46 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It's been 88 days since the inauguration....oh shit.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 35 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Hitler's birthday is in two days. Let's see if Trump randomly declares war on Poland or something to commemorate it.

[–] Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It's the day that the clown traitors he appointed to destroy our intelligence agencies are supposed to hand him a report on if they can fake a reason for the filth to enact martial law.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Infernal_pizza@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

Fucking hell it's not even been 3 months!?

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 17 points 3 days ago

The scenes I've seen of people around Trump, making sure to kiss his ass and over-emphasize with nervous straight faces what a genius he is and how well things are going, are the stuff of nightmares.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago

I'm just gonna quote my wife here when I talk about outlandish work stuff:

"Wow." - dream_weasel’s wife

[–] Iceman@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity

Ok, so your on drugs. It's not a particularly unique technology tho.

[–] peterg75@discuss.online 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Growing up in USSR we had a saying: a comrad comes to you with a shovel, points to a patch of land and says: "you will dig from here and until supper".

I bet White House, with it's ties to Putin's Russia, means something similar.

[–] skhayfa@lemmy.world 62 points 4 days ago

The time distortion first came when a huge number of dense people gathered at the same spot in the white house.

[–] captainjaneway@lemmy.world 56 points 3 days ago

“Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity”

I - too - can walk, garden, and drink coffee.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 32 points 3 days ago

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

[–] DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 21 points 3 days ago

I, too, am a source of gravity.

[–] Marthirial@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago
  • General Relativity 1905
  • Special Relativity 1905
  • Assclown Relativity 2025
[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 41 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In the speech, Kratsios emphasized the importance of American leadership in emerging technologies and criticized regulatory burdens that, in his view, had slowed progress. "We have weighed down our builders and innovators," he said. "But we are capable of so much more."

"Can we get some comments from the innovators?"

"No we fired them."

[–] BeNotAfraid@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

He's Talking about regulations on Big Tech in terms of data collection, monopoly and social engineering. We need to remove these people from the sphere of political influence. Break up Alphabet, Delete Meta, tax wealth not work.

[–] BmeBenji@lemm.ee 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It manipulates space by “moving everything around you until the space around you is not the USA, but El Salvador,” and it manipulates time by making it seem like no time has passed as the space moves, almost like you were put to sleep with a tranquilizer (but that’s definitely not what it was)

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It manipulates time by sending the entire country back 100 years, and it manipulates space by making it seem like the middle of Europe

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago
[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago

if true this explains soooo much.

1000001416

[–] impudentmortal@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

To be fair, these last 3 months have felt like 3 years so maybe they're on to something.

[–] Frjttr@lemm.ee 21 points 4 days ago

Sure, sure… Even a plane can “manipulate time and space”.

[–] Wilco@lemm.ee 13 points 3 days ago

Yea, its called creative accounting ... or fraud.

[–] MithranArkanere@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago

I can too.

I can move through space all the way to next to my nightstand and change the clock's time with a little wheel behind it.

[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

Too bad they have it set to 1930's germany

white house discovers cannabis

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Please be Aliens bro. Please.

[–] Docandersonn@lemm.ee 9 points 3 days ago

"Prompting online speculation" ... This line can be thrown into literally any news article.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

did someone just explain to this guy the half a century old tech scanning tunneling microscope that uses quantum tunneling for imaging

[–] alphapuggle@programming.dev 7 points 3 days ago

If they had the technology to manipulate time and space they'd just use it to commit election fraud

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

It's ketamine, isn't it?

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 7 points 3 days ago

It is called the MAGAt field of stupidity.

[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Idiots just threw a wristwatch.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago
[–] rodneylives@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

They can't even manipulate their own fool heads.

[–] DogPeePoo@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

Amphetamines are a helluva drug

[–] PacMan@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] WeeneyTodd@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I was expecting something along these lines

[–] Ioughttamow@fedia.io 5 points 3 days ago

The cake is a lie! They shouted, certain they had grabbed the cultural zeitgeist by the tail

[–] KaRunChiy@fedia.io 5 points 3 days ago

Oh god, the space age larpers took over

The pseudoscience and grift administration has embraced the Montauk Project

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

There is ZERO reason to believe this.

Or at the least there is ZERO reason to believe it in the way that it was interpreted.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I never considered the world where we invent the ability to accelerate time, and just use it for making workers work more shifts so they die even younger just to extract more value relative to those without the technology.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

Reminds me of the poster for the Terry Gilliam classic "Time Bandits."

They could travel anywhere in time or space. They just couldn't tie their own shoes."

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Then go get everyone’s 401k money back

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

He who controls the past, controls the present.

[–] CetaceanNeeded@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Come with us now on a journey through time and space. To the world of the Might Bullshit.

load more comments
view more: next ›